quick wiring help needed please

[cgrand]

alrite i finally got around to finishing the rewiring of the mckee craft i've been working on...now i have a problem

i have the engine leads on the battery
i have pos/neg leads of a dual bus bar on the battery
i have a 12v cig plug on the dual bus, FF leads on the dual bus
i have three rocker switches jumped together pos & jumped together neg, then the pos jumper is spliced to a pos lead from the dual bus.
the neg jumper from the switches is run to another small neg bus, where i also have the negs from the bow/aft lights and the bilge pump
the pos leads from the lights & the bilge pump are on the switches
the neg lead from the dual bus is also on this neg bus

so...i connect the dual bus to the battery, throw the rocker switches and get nothing, except that the pos wires all start to get really hot, so i quickly disconnect the battery

what did i do wrong, where do i start looking?

[cgrand]

daylight's burning...help me out

[marker150]

The only thing that could cause that is a short.... re-check your wiring

[cgrand]

what am i looking for?

[Elusive]

Why are there negative wires on the switches ? If they have indicator lamps, OK. if not this is the problem. Disconnect everything from the buses & reconnect 1 by 1 until you find the problem

Instead of connecting everything on the bus, consider doing it a better way. With a fuse panel each circuit is fused and doesn't affect every other circuit

[cgrand]

thank you...that was the problem

[warthog5]

As Elusive said. The neg. wires have no place being on the switch's.

A pos goes to the switch and pos come's out of the switch. The switch open's [OFF]or close's [ON] the circuit.
That pos wire continues to the load on the POS side[pump, light, etc,etc] The neg wire comming out of the load goes to neg.

Sound's like you need some basic knowledge of a series circuit.

What you have done connecting the POS & NEG to the switch is taken the load out of the circuit and caused a short when the switch is closed. Electricity take's the path of least resistance.

Suggest you buy some of the book's before you burn your boat down.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007...953532?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007...953532?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007...953532?ie=UTF8

[warthog5]

Do you have a CB [circuit breaker] in the Pos lead from the battery to the Pos buss bar to protect that wiring and have it close to the battery?